Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Saddam Faces New Charges

On Tuesday while still on trail for the killing of 140 Shiites in a town north of Baghdad, ousted dictator Saddam Hussein found out that he would also be facing new charges of genocide against the Kurds in the 1980s.Saddam who has tried to make a mockery and a circus of this court will be joined by his cousin Ali hassan al-Majeed, known as "chemical Ali" for his roles in the poison gas attack against the village of Halabja in 1988 that cost the lives of some 5,000 civilians."We declare the investigations are completed in the case called the Anfal campaign in which thousands of women, children and men were killed. The accused are being transferred to the criminal court," said Raid Jouhi, court spokesman."They will be tried according to the Iraqi law for charges of genocide and crimes against humanity."This new case involves Saddams role in Operation Anfal, a three-phase move against the Kurds in the north of Iraq. Anfal included the March 16 gas attack on the village of Halabja in which 5,000 died, including women and children and 10,000 became blinded, maimed, disfigured of debilitated by the chemical attacks.In December, a Dutch court sentenced chemicals merchant Frans van Anraat to 15 years in prison for selling Saddam's regime the chemicals used in the gas attacks. The ruling concluded that the attacks constituted genocide. One document was a government decree said to have been signed by Saddam on June 20, 1987, ordering "special artillery bombs to kill as many people as possible" in the Kurdish area. Special artillery, Dutch prosecutors said, meant chemical weapons."Chemical Ali" was heard in an April 21, 1988, audio clip ordering that people caught in Kurdish areas "have to be destroyed ... Must have their heads shot off." In another radio fragment, he said: "I will attack them with chemical weapons and kill them all."